Bangladeshi Born Canadian Scientist Amit Chamka has won the prestigious Malone award, reported Western News.
He is the First Canadian academic to win this coveted award for his significant contributions to international education at public and land-grant institutions.
Dr Chamka said: “I feel very proud to be the first Canadian university president honoured with the Malone Award because it reflects the collective effort of Western’s entire campus community, which is renowned for providing the best student experience in the country.”
He was born in 1959 in Southeastern Bangladesh, he is the president of the University of Western Ontario in Canada.
In 1982, Dr Chakma completed his studies with a scholarship on Natural Gas processing engineering at Algerian Petroleum Institute in Algeria and became the best in the class.
He then moved to Canada and earned an M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of British Columbia.
From 1988 until 1996, he taught chemical engineering at the University of Calgary. In 1996 he moved to the University of Regina as Dean of Engineering.
He then served as Regina's Vice President Research from 1999 to 2001. During his time at the University of Regina, Dr. Chakma was named to Canada's Top 40 Under 40 list.
He became Vice President Academic and Provost at the University of Waterloo in 2001. His research interests are natural gas engineering and petroleum waste management.
On July 1, 2009, Dr Chakma became the University of Western Ontario's President.
The Malone Awards honour those who further international education in public higher education and are dedicated to the memory of Michael P Malone (1940-1999), who served as president of Montana State University from 1991 until his untimely death in 1999.
Sponsored by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), award recipients this year also include professors Krishnaswami Srihari of Binghamton University and Robin Reid of Colorado State University.
